Hammocks residents fed up after latest sewage spill

Tuesday

Mainline break near Sarasota County subdivision is second this year to foul their properties

Dead bluegill litter three retention ponds in the Hammocks subdivision, where a 337,000-gallon raw sewage spill has fouled the water and the air.

The outhouse stink smacks residents in the face every time they step outside their $500,000 homes.

They've had it.

Sunday night's spill marks the second time in a year that the 18-inch wide sewer mainline that runs down Bee Ridge Road has ruptured in front of the well-kept, gated development east of Interstate 75. This spill, enough to fill 13 backyard swimming pools, is slightly bigger than the last one.

"Everything had just gotten back to normal over the summer," says Cheri Luehr, president of the homeowner's association. "And here we go again."

County officials are trying to figure out why the 15-year-old PVC pipe keeps breaking.

The Hammocks sits about a quarter-mile from the Bee Ridge Water Reclamation Facility. The pipe is scheduled to be replaced with a bigger one in a few years, but county officials say it is not undersized for the time being.

"For it to fail the way it is, spontaneously and for no apparent reason, is a big concern," says Dave Cash, the county's executive director of operations and maintenance. "We're taking it seriously and we're investigating the options."

Those include either placing a liner inside the pipe to stabilize it, or replacing the entire section with a wider pipe a few years ahead of schedule. Cash said the county is also considering stress testing the broken pipe to see if it was defective.

Luehr and several other residents of the Hammocks are pushing for a new, bigger pipe to be installed.

They are also wondering about the accuracy of the county's spill estimate, which is based on how much sewage flows through the pipe and the time it took to fix it. The spill estimate is important because it helps determine the extent of the cleanup.

"Based on what we went through last fall with the county, those numbers were underestimated to begin with," Luehr says.

Because the ponds were already nearly full of rainwater, Luehr and other residents say the sewage backed up into the subdivision's drainage system even further than last time.

At least some of the nasty gray sewage reached two of the nature preserves in the Hammocks, they say.

And after two big spills, some residents are also saying that the ponds should be drained and dredged to get rid of the slimy muck that settles to the bottom.

For now, the county has treated the ditches with lime and the ponds with enzymes that will help break down bacteria.

Residents of the three dozen or so homes closest to the retention ponds have retreated from their lanais and cancelled Labor Day parties.

"You can't be out here," says Steve Yoder, grimacing as he steps into his screened pool area, 10 yards from the stinky grayish water. "We've got to hope that the wind blows east, see? It's blowing the wrong way."

Inside, they are deploying scented candles and electric air filters. From experience, they know the stink will last at least two weeks.

"It's an instant headache when you go out there," says Noelle Paredes, greeting visitors at her front door and hustling them quickly inside to keep out the stench. "No one wants to live in that."

Paredes and her husband have lived in the Hammocks since 2001. Like other longtime residents, they also recall that the same sewer line broke in 2005.

That was about a half-mile up the road, and the sewage didn't reach her backyard.

But it's another sign that this problem should have been figured out years ago.

Paredes says the county needs to drain the retention ponds and dredge out the "fecal muck" at the bottom, after flooding them with hundreds of thousands of gallons of sewage.